Six years on, Godin is perceptive: "Librarians that are arguing and lobbying for clever ebook lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending library as warehouse as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario." (Bold mine)

Indeed, this remains the dominant mode in many library discussions -- the value of paper, and how we get people back into the library building even when they have more efficient (which is not the same as more accurate) information delivery systems elsewhere. Some librarians still want users to operate as though the web had never been invented.

Some but not all. Indeed, I would argue that most librarians have long since come to terms with the digital age and are seeking to reinvent themselves. Since Godin's original post appeared, manylibraries have built maker-spaces and otherwise reinvigorated their physical plants.

But these are still outliers. The dominant conception of what a library is and ever will be, often within the profession and certainly without, is of a warehouse for books. Scott's lecture predicted that a fully digital culture is still two generations away; if so, it is not surprising that things still feel the same a mere six years later.

I italicized "and certainly without" above, because a huge challenge is that library patrons still like the warehouse model. Or at least enough of them do to cause trouble whenever a librarian attempts to assert that they are an information professional rather than a warehouse manager.

October 25, 2016

We are in the middle of Open Access Week, now in its ninth year. The goal remains the same as ever: to increase support of the idea that the publications which record scholarly research should be completely open to all interested readers, immediately at the time of publication. Although open access publishing has made great strides over the last 10-15 years, the subscription/license model remains the dominant mode of providing academic research. (That link covers STM literature in particular, but the point about subscriptions and licenses holds across all academic disciplines.)

This year's particular Open Access Week theme is "putting open in action," or taking concrete steps to make scholarly research more open. The idea is to encourage small, tangible and achievable steps that will cumulatively lead to a greater share of scholarship being open immediately. Some of these ideas: that researchers commit to sending one of their manuscripts to an open access journal next year, or that researchers commit to discussing open access at one of their lab or department meeting. The idea here is for peer-to-peer encouragement of researchers to consider open access publication can be a wise career move.

At first blush it seems obvious that open publication would be a wise career move. If everyone can read an article or monograph, that work is likely to have more readers than if it is stuck behind a "pay wall." Assuming that writers write to be read, that can only be a good thing.

Alas, academic writers only really need to be read by the people in their fields. And the people in their fields do not need to worry about the pay wall because their librarians are paying the bills. The bottom line is that academic authors are writing for prestige rather than wide reach, and most of the prestigious journals still require a subscription or license. As long as this is so, open access will remain a partially realized dream.

So the call to discuss open access at lab/department meetings is a grassroots effort to make openness prestigious. If that happens, and only then, will complete and immediate open access be a reality.

October 17, 2016

Just in time for this year's major league baseball playoffs, Wharton professor Etan Green offers a fascinating interview about the subjective determinations baseball umpires make when calling balls and strikes.

The strike zone, ostensibly, is an objectively determined region "defined by the width of home plate on the ground and the batter’s stance." In a fully empirical world that is only guided by directly visible evidence, an umpire should always call a pitch that ends up in the same place the same thing. Once a ball, always a ball; once a strike, always a strike.

That's not what happens, as Green clearly shows. If a hitter is behind 0-2, a pitch that is actually a strike (as determined by the stereoscopic cameras behind home plate) may well be called a ball. If a hitter is up 3-0, the next pitch -- even if it is yet another ball --is more likely to be called a strike than the same exact pitch thrown earlier in the count. Umpires are human.

Learning about Green's work reminded me of a 2008 paper I wrote, "Friendly Skepticism About Evidence Based Library and Information Practice." While there are obvious merits to using valid data to inform library decision-making (such as downloads or check-out statistics), librarianship is just as much a human enterprise as is baseball umpiring. And as such librarianship is just as subject to capricious factors, such as the will of a powerful faculty member to influence collection decisions regardless of the data that clearly shows a new acquisition would be a poor use of funds.

So I maintain my"friendly skepticism" about the evidence-based imperative. Let's extol the virtues of carefully gathering evidence without pretending that this will ever be the only driver of our decisions. And let's keep the umpires behind home plate, even if they are unduly affected by the roar of the crowd and the rhythms of the game.

That dean, Roman Kochan, replied with a tart missive to Allen. Kochan's message, in essence, was that Allen had stepped out of his lane and had best step back.

What was the fuss about? Allen accused one of Kochan's librarians, Gabriel Gardner, of promoting Sci-Hub. Yes, Sci-Hub, the site that publishers hate ("piracy") and researchers love ("it's so easy.") Now with over 50,000,000 papers and counting -- many if not most obtained through such dubious means as computer hacking -- Sci-Hub is the strongest threat yet to publisher paywalls and revenue streams.

Rather than evolving their business models, the main response by publishers so far has been to double down and build two-factor authentication schemes to protect their current revenues. This nerdy instance of whack-a-mole continues apace.

Back to Tom Allen, CEO of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). Allen's beef with librarian Gardner was that Gardner had not shilled sufficiently for AAP during a recent ALA presentation. Allen wanted Gardner to proclaim Sci-Hub illegal, immoral and detrimental to all human life. But Allen alleges -- on the basis of very scant evidence -- that Gardner encouraged people to use Sci-Hub. The more probable version of events is that Gardner simply noted that Sci-Hub is easy to use (it is). Allen charges instead that Gardner aided and abetted lawless behavior, but that's plainly ludicrous.

Let's not be too harsh -- Allen is just doing his job, throwing some red meat to his base of angry publishers. This is blatant propaganda, easily dismissed.

Nonetheless Allen's gambit does pose an interesting question: How should we discuss things that are clearly illegal (in the court of law sense) but are much more ambiguous ethically?

For Sci-Hub fits squarely into this frame. There is absolutely no doubt that the site is illegal, sourced by still-in-copyright materials Sci-Hub does not own or license.

And yet. The very fact that publishers can copyright, and profit by, the results of what is often taxpaper-funded research is unconscionable. It's legally permitted but morally outrageous. Even if we grant that publishers add value to scholarly communication (and I do) this does not mean they need the iron grip on content they currently have in order to make a profit. It's the system we've chosen to build, not the only system we ever could have.

Sci-Hub is far from blameless in this equation, as it falsely impersonates people and steals network credentials in order to obtain articles. But, of course, no such actions would be necessary if all scholarly content were open access at the time of publication.

So back to the question: what to do when something is legally forbidden but ethically ambiguous? Say so. Librarians discussing Sci-Hub with anyone should say, "This is illegal but the laws are bad. Live within these constraints AND seek to change them." Of course, most people listening will ignore the legal constraints (Sci-Hub is damn easy) and do nothing whatsoever to change copyright law. It's up to librarians and progressive attorneys to take that part on.

March 20, 2016

The last week has featured dueling tweetstorms about the article processing charges (APCs) assessed by leading open access publisher PLOS.

First up was population geneticist Andrew Kern, who argues that the APCs charged by PLOS ($2250 per article for him most recently) actually props up lavish executive salaries rather than furthering open access. Slash those salaries and severely reduce APCs, says Kern. In response more researchers would pay those charges so their work can be open access, even when they have to pay them out-of-pocket. In other words, "chop from the top."

Michael Eisen, biologist and one of the founders of PLOS, responded quickly. Eisen agrees that APCs are too high and wishes they were lower. But he also argues that the PLOS board has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure a healthy operating margin for the journals, to ensure that PLOS survives and can continue to build infrastructure to support open science (which is more than open access). The CEO salaries are the going rate, says Eisen. He wishes they were lower but if PLOS went below market they could not attract top talent. Publishing is a lot more expensive than people realize, notes Eisen, in perhaps the one instance in which he agrees with the claims of leading subscription-based publishers.

Eisen also points out the rich irony: when PLOS began everyone said open access was a crazy idea, with no way to make money. Now PLOS is dinged for making too much money. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

When open access entered common parlance in 2003 -- thanks in large part to PLOS -- I echoed many librarian colleagues in hoping that this development would lead to much reduced prices for accessing the scholarly literature. Obviously the costs ended completely for end users. But hopefully they were also going to drop dramatically for institutions such as academic libraries, which have the mandate to collect and preserve this literature.

This was our naive hope back then. More sagacious observers could see that open access would not necessarily be a cost saver for academic libraries -- rather, the costs would shift from paying for subscriptions and licenses to paying for article processing charges. Indeed, for very prolific research institutions costs could rise dramatically in an APC regime. Because for all the good open access achieves, it does not end the "publish or perish" mindset. And if anyone else pays APCs, the authors of scholarly works remain shielded from the actual costs of production.

So over the years I abandoned the hope that "gold" open access would save money for institutions. This was never the goal, ultimately -- the goal was much better access to the literature, with fewer restrictions on re-use and re-purposing that content. If this cost the same amount as the subscription model -- even if it cost more -- there was a salutary and undeniable public good. Not only would everyone have access to the scholarly record as it is being created. Librarians would no longer have to erect elaborate authentication systems and lock-out mechanisms to keep the unanointed away from our networks.

And yet. And yet....

In all these years of advocating for open access, I have never had a good explanation for why APC charges vary as widely as they do. Nor do I actually know what the money goes for, down at the article-by-article level.

This is similar to receiving an undifferentiated bill for services at the hospital. You see the grand total but not the line items that produce that total. As Steven Brill reminded us with Bitter Pill (2013), this lack of transparency leads to grossly distorted health care prices in which the cost of service bears little relation to the services provided.

It is hard not to believe that the same thing occurs with APC amounts.

A few authors are motivated by altruism, many others are motivated the fact that their funders insist on open access (often with embargos at the moment, but that feels like a transitional stage toward immediate open access.) Those funders generally pay very handsome APC charges, as a recent Harvard Office of Scholarly Communication report demonstrates. In the context of a funder's overall grant portfolio, even a very high APC is pocket change. Motivated authors are connected to flush funders, who pay non-itemized bills for article processing charges.

In such conditions there must be some level of APC inflation.

This does not mean PLOS is nefarious, or is not genuinely committed to open access. But as a business entity too, the perceived need to ratchet up APCS beyond what would strictly be necessary (even granting the need for healthy operating margins) must be irresistible.

Or to put it another way: If Ubiquity Press can charge $400, and many journals on the DOAJ charge nothing, why was Andrew Kern's bill $2250?